Guest essay by Eric Worrall
What would you think of a Psychology lecturer who every year plays a real life version Prisoner’s Dilemma with undergraduates, awarding course credits based on the outcome of a climate cooperation game?
What a Simple Psychological Test Reveals About Climate Change
If everyone’s success depended on it, would you share—or be selfish?
By Dylan Selterman
I teach undergraduate psychology courses at the University of Maryland, and my classes draw students with diverse interests. But every one of them perks up when I pose this question: Do you want two extra-credit points on your term paper, or six points?
I tell my students that the extra-credit offer is part of an exercise illustrating the interconnectedness of choices individuals make in communities. I explain that the exercise was inspired by an ecologist named Garrett Hardin and an address that he delivered 50 years ago this summer, describing what he called “the tragedy of the commons.” Hardin said that when many individuals act in their own self-interest without regard for society, the effects can be catastrophic. Hardin used the 19th-century convention of “the commons”—a cattle-grazing pasture that villagers shared—to warn against the overexploitation of communal resources.
…
A possible solution seems simple: If everyone just moderated their consumption, we’d have sustainability. As many of my students say, “If everyone chooses two points, we’ll all get the points.” And yet, for the first eight years I used this exercise, only one class—of the dozens I taught—stayed under the 10 percent threshold. All the other classes failed.
This exercise was developed more than 25 years ago. Professor Steve Drigotas of Johns Hopkins University had been using it for some time when he administered it to me and my classmates in 2005. My class failed too—and I, who had chosen two points, was incredibly frustrated with my peers who had chosen six.
In 2015 one of my students tweeted about the exercise—“WHAT KIND OF PROFESSOR DOES THIS”—and his lament went viral. People around the globe weighed in: Does so many people choosing six points mean it’s human nature to be greedy and selfish?
…
In 2016 I decided to change things up. In hopes of finding a way to increase cooperation, I drew from the scientific literature on social groups and introduced a third option: Students could choose two points, six points—or zero points. That’s right. Zero. Why would anyone do that? Well, for each student who chose zero points, one of the six-point choosers (selected randomly) would lose everything, reducing the total number of six-point choosers by one.
…
Prisoner’s dilemma is an interesting intellectual concept – unless you are one of the prisoners, or in this case students. In which case being one of the prisoners in a game of Prisoner’s Dilemma might be a nasty and humiliating experience, especially for a student who is struggling, a student who really needs those precious additional course credit points.
To be fair, in 2016 Lecturer Dylan Selterman improved the odds of at least some students winning additional class credits, by offering self sacrifice option, allowing students to deliberately choose zero class credits for themselves in return for pulling down one of their more ambitious fellows.
“I explain … (my) exercise was inspired by an ecologist named Garrett Hardin … describing what he called “the tragedy of the commons.” … Hardin used the 19th-century convention of “the commons”—a cattle-grazing pasture that villagers shared—to warn against the overexploitation of communal resources.”
I believe that without much effort someone can make a powerful case that what Hardin was describing was communism [public (State) ownership of everything] and the logical outcome. When everybody owns something, nobody does. So, there’s no reason to take care of it.
I think that somewhat unwittingly both Dylan Selterman and Garrett Hardin are presenting arguments against communism, or its somewhat more benign offspring; socialism. Funny that so many eco’s disparage capitalism and support more socialistic forms of societal organization.
Adam Smith and human civilization has already proven that the question and the premise are based on incorrect assumptions about human beings.
We are complex. Some people sometime act like they are selfish. Some people sometimes act they are altruistic. But all that means is that you cannot tell what people are really going to do in any given situation and all you can rely on is what they actually do.
Just like the climate. Just like the stock market. Just like who votes for whatever candidate.
Every university student should read The Wealth of Nations. Clear, logical and full of easy to understand explanations.
And then they should be required to read “Progress and Poverty,” “Social Problems” and “The Science of Political Economy” all by Henry George.
After that, they will know more than any of the modern mal-educated economists.
Glad you cleared that up 🙂
I was beginning to think….never mind, I was thinking again.
Hate it when that happens 🙂
Economic success is a real prisoners dilemma, not a zero sum game. Western democratic countries are successful and dictatorships are struggling.
Climate is common to all but behaviors promoted are money transfers from the careless public. Paying to bankers via carbon trading or to big government via carbon tax or to special interest groups via subsidies and tariffs are just exploitation of the delusional people. Look at the facts instead of listening to the MSM.
Hardin made a mistake in the apparently widely read and oft cited
“Tragedy of the Commons.” The mistake was pointed
out to him with supporting evidence, and he re-wrote and published
it again as “Tragedy of the Unmanaged
Commons.” .
You can read all about it in Robert V. Andelson’s great book:
“Commons without Tragedy” which should be compulsory
reading for all the UN architects of Agenda 2030 who so obviously
haven’t read or heard of it.
==============
See:
ANDELSON R.V: Commons without Tragedy, [1991] Centre for
Incentive Taxation Ltd, London, 1991, Shepheard-Walwyn Publishers
London, and also in USA:[1991] Barnes and Noble Books, Savage MD.
ISBN 0-85683-126-3 (UK Edition)
& 0-389-20958-9 (US Edition)
Also available from the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation in NY.
Recommended reading; Enjoy.
link https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/26/climate-prisoners-dilemma-for-psychology-undergraduates/https//www.schalkenbach.org/product/commons-without-tragedy-robert-v-andelson/
doesn’t work, for obvious reason.
http://schalkenbach.org/product/commons-without-tragedy-robert-v-andelson/
works
thanks for your assist. Appreciate it.
The one who takes 0 credits in order to eliminate a high achiever has a name: we call him a ‘suicide bomber’.
Or virtue signaller, or Holier than Thou, or Al Gore.
One way or another, I’ll be he exploits this choice of his to his advantage to berate his fellow man, while stating how awesome he is.
It wasn’t altruism after all.
Dylan is a psycho teacher from Maryland
The professor’s solution to the problem was to provide for sacrificial anonymous harsh internal discipline. Some zealot sacrifices himself and becomes a zero in order to get to zero out some non-conformist. It brings to mind suicide bombers or the masked anonymity of that black bloc faction of Antifa. His climate solution is to eliminate the deniers, like the Weather Underground terrorists of the 60s thought that 25 million capitalists might have to be eliminated. Studies of human notions of “fairness” have shown that we have a willingness to discipline nonconformity and unfairness within the group, even if it is not in our self interest, i.e., involves a cost or sacrifice.